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by ROBERTA NEWMAN The June 1967 issue of Yedies reported on the untimely death of Uriel Weinreich, noted linguist and lexicographer, in whose name YIVO established its intensive summer Yiddish immersion program. Forty-seven years later, his legacy continues in other ways, too: in the Yiddish-English English-Yiddish dictionary that saw publication a ...

An international conference dedicated to the 90th anniversary of YIVO's establishment and the 75th anniversary of its transition to New York will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania on April 21-23, 2015.

The Yiddish Daily Forward ran two features focusing on YIVO on July 17: A geshikhte fun YIVO [A History of YIVO], a review of Cecile Kuznitz’s book YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture by Gennady Estraikh, YIVO’s new Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish Literature; and Khayem Grades arkhiv antplekt [Chaim Grade’s Archive Revealed], a report on YIVO’s public program "YIVO's Newest Treasure: The Chaim Grade and Ina Hecker-Grade Archive" (July 13). Professor Estraikh is quoted, along with Professor Agi Legutko (director of the Yiddish language program at Columbia University and an instructor in the YIVO-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazic Civilization) in a Jewish News Service article, "Nearly lost Yiddish language increasingly popular among Jewish college students."

Sholem Aleichem, his wife Olga, and their three children, Tissa, Lyala (Bel Kaufman’s mother), and Emma, Kiev, 1889. The family portrait was used as a Rosh Hashana greeting card (see Hebrew inscription at bottom). (YIVO Archives) Bel Kaufman, the granddaughter of Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem and the author of the 1965 bestselling novel Up the Down ...

On Thursday, July 17, 2014, The New York Times reported on the shutting down of the offices of the Congress for Jewish Culture. The organization was founded by writers and intellectuals in 1948 to promote the work of Yiddish language and culture and once also had offices in Paris and Buenos Aires.

Read more about the Congress for Jewish Culture.

The newly donated records will join an existing collection of Congress for Jewish Culture in the YIVO Archives (Record Group 1148).

This broadcast from February 14th, 1965 presents excerpts from the paper, “The Philosophy of the New Jewish Translation of the Torah into English” delivered by Dr. Harry (Tsvi Orlinsky), at YIVO’s annual conference, which had taken place the month before. Orlinsky was editor in chief of the Torah for The ...

Leah Falk interviews Faith Jones, Jennifer Kronovet, and Samuel Solomon on their translation of Celia Dropkin’s poems in The Acrobat.

by ROBERTA NEWMAN In 1945, YIVO announced an essay contest on the theme of "My Experiences and Observations as a Jew and a Soldier in World War II." Fifty-two essays were received as submissions and in December 1946, Yedies reported on the award of prizes to the winners. The contest may have ...

Dr. Gennady Estraikh has been appointed YIVO’s first Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish Literature for the fall semester 2014. The Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar in East European Jewish Literature is made possible with the generous support of the Seedlings Foundation.

Dr. Estraikh is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish language and literature and Eastern European Jewish history. As the Albert B. Ratner Visiting Scholar, he will teach the course "Modernism in Yiddish Literature," give public presentations on the American Jewish novelist Howard Fast, and chair a symposium on Ukranian literary figure Taras Shevchenko. In addition, Estraikh will mentor YIVO fellows, conduct research and participate in the academic life of the YIVO Institute.

Somewhere around 2008, the French/Brooklynite historian, filmmaker and translator Isabelle Rozenbaumas launched a project, Bat Kama At? (How old are you?), a historical, art, and educational project about the lives and fate of 500 girls from the Yavne Girls’ Gymnasium in Telsiai (known in Yiddish as Telz), Lithuania, where her mother was a student before World War II. The girls who remained in Telz during the Nazi occupation were massacred in December 1941.

Rozenbaumas’ project is multi-faceted. She has gathered documents, testimonies, and photographs from all over the world, seeking to identify as many of the girls and women from the Yavne school in Telz as possible. She has also worked with the Telsiu Vincento Boriseviciaus Gimnazija School, a Catholic high school in Telsiai, on a project in which students study interwar Jewish life and education in Lithuania. One of the ultimate goals of Bat Kama At? is an installation of 500 portraits of the Yavne students in the open air in Telz, that will be designed to later travel to other venues.

Read more about Bat Kama At? at its website and in this blogpost by Rokhl Kafrissen at Rootless Cosmopolitan.

Rozenbaumas is the recipient of a 2013-2014 Baltic Jewish Studies Fellowship from YIVO’s Max Weinreich Center. She was interviewed by Yedies Editor Roberta Newman.